You know how sometimes when people post updates on facebook and instead of wanting to "like" it, you want to "dislike" it? Don't you wish there was a "thumbs down" button? Anyways, I'm currently in the "dislike" mode for marathon recovery.
Being that this was my first marathon, I really had no concept of what the recovery would be like or how long it would take. After all my half marathons my max recovery was 2 days, other race lengths would be 1 day or less. Just based on the time I needed to recover from a half, I figured I'd be set for the full after a week. I was already planning an aggressive 5k plan for a new PR and wanted to get started right away. Well... I was wrong, really wrong. It's been almost 4 weeks now and I'm still waiting for the run where my legs feel fresh. I took a full week off from running and since then have only averaged 2 runs a week. I've picked up extra spin classes to try and stay active and increase recovery time, but it's just not going how I thought it would.
I've been in training mode for the last year and a half straight, always training for something. Always planning hard workouts for speed and distance work and never taking more than a week off from running. It's quite the shock to all of a sudden not be able to train for anything, not even a measly 5k, because my legs can't handle a run at even marathon pace, let alone 5k pace. I'm pretty miserable and am worried that I'm losing all of my speed and endurance that I have built up over the last year.
I have noticed some small improvements on my runs, but it's not enough for me to be excited about it. I'm trying to accept that recovery is a necessary evil and that eventually I will be back to normal and ready to train again... it's just really hard to believe it at this point. I've already signed up for my next marathon and my training will start Aug 1st... I sure hope I've recovered by then, otherwise I'm screwed.
On a side note, my foot appears to be completely healed, hooray!
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